I’m an adult. But heck, even when I was a teenager I knew my mother viewed me as an investment and getting rid of me before I could take care of myself would be more of a blow to her than to me. And family or not, she wasn’t stupid enough to slap someone more physically able than herself, to say nothing of my tendency towards Lex Talionis.

Yeah. What’s with Dan and sprinting through the house?
Looks like he’s floating in the air.
And you don’t hear Ma screaming at Dan to stop running in the house.
Kinda obvious which one’s the Mama’s Boy here.

Whether Bill Gates is good or not is irrelevant. Being a nerd worked out well FOR Bill Gates, which is the important supporting point. (And for the record, most of us prefer the term “geek”.)

As for the smack, Alex totally had it coming after the stunt he pulled the previous day, trying to manipulate his mom into embarrassing Dan. She is NOT a controlling bitch, and whoever said that is probably an out of control teenager who deserves a smack themselves.

Nerd and Geek aren’t the same.
Both imply a certain level of fascination with a subject or subjects… BUT …
A nerd typically obsesses over academic subjects while a geek typically obsesses over pop-culture… and obviously there is a certain degree of cross-over.

For instance, I’m a biology nerd and a gamer geek… I could go on at length about the mating habits of fig wasps or protomammalian anatomy as I could about location (and nature) of all the Daedric Artifacts in the last three Elder Scrolls games.

Remember when Alex said his world is “nothing special” and “there’s no other place I’d rather be [than in Dreamland]”? Well, if Dreamland is so much more interesting, then why doesn’t he sneak off sometimes to take extra naps? Like maybe outside, under a shade tree or something?